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New Vegas is REALLY starting to grow on me

I went back and forth on this title at first. I loved it for the first 3 levels, then found it a bit stale until level 9. It just wasn't 'grabbing' me for some reason. So, I finished the REPCONN mission and found myself glued to my monitor, white-knuckling the mouse/keyboard. It was like some of the best parts Fallout 3 with the added depth of New Vegas.

I just love this game and I recommend it to anyone who even had a passsing interest in Fallout 3, or Hell, even Mass Effect/Alpha Protocol type games.

So, what level are you guys @ and what are your favorite moments to date?

I'm 46 hours in and really loving it for the most part. Apart from the bugs, the biggest negative thing I can really think of is that the world doesn't feel like quite as desperate a place as in FO3. The capital wasteland was full of little stories about how the societal collapse took place, but there's little of that in New Vegas, and for the most part it just feels a bit run down rather than the post-apocalyptic nihilistic hell of D.C. Maybe it's intentional, I don't know. The apparently looming war feels a bit weak though and that can't be what they intended. It's just a bit funny going to the "front lines" and listening to the guys talk about what hell war is and how they're making a desperate stand, when the opposing force that's terrorizing them seemingly consists of four dudes that you one-shot on the way to the camp.

Either way, I'm having a lot of fun. Got to level 18 on my first character, but I've largely abandoned him in favor of my level 12 unarmed albino cannibal. As for favorite moments, I actually really enjoyed the early bits in Goodsprings, as humble as it was. Also vault 22. On the meta-level though my favorite moment would have to be you discovering that your character may be gay.

The capital wasteland was full of little stories about how the societal collapse took place

I haven't been to DC, but if I wanted to find information on anything the last place I would visit would be Las Vegas and the first probably DC or Boston. Las Vegas to me is utterly vapid, though I only saw the tourist traps on a stopover. So it kind of makes sense. Not that I've played it or am trying to make excuses for laziness on behalf of the devs

My favorite place so far would be Vault 34 or the Broc Flower Caves which is infested with the "Rodents of Unusual Size" from Princess Bride. Vault 34 is filled with radiation and tons of feral ghouls that respawn once you do certain things. I was running around frantically the whole time, gulping Rad Aways. It was also funny how they had a boss ghoul on a raised Overseer desk with turrets under it, as that how the Overseer chairs looked in FO1/2. Go to those if you're a Guns person. They are well worth it.

I think my favorite improvement is how many less generic "dungeons" there are. There's usually some unique piece of equipment in them if there's no quest attached to them.

T-Smith: Ouch. If you're on PC, I know there's a console command called "coc [cellname]" that will teleport you to another cell. I would open up the GECK, load the FalloutNV.esm, and find the name of a cell you've already been to.

Unfortunately, I am also having problems with NV. The game looks great but I can only play it for 20-30 minutes. After that the sound goes crazy (it freezes and makes my speakers scream). The only way to fix this problem: restart the computer. I've tried to update my sound card drivers, reinstall the game and disable fddshow codec. It did not help.

It's a pity because I really like what I see so far (5 hours in the game). This problem makes the game unplayable. And I've never experienced any crashes, sound issues etc. with Fallout 3.

You know what? I bet 1/2 of my friends playing this game have HUGE stability problems with it. It is insane: game crashes, saves erased, won't load, etc... I feel so lucky. Only crashed once in almost 40 hrs. and nothing else. I really feel bad for you guys with said problems.

Recently I've barely been able to go 10-15 minutes without a CTD, but I guess it says a lot about how much I enjoy the game that I don't really mind that much. With most games I would've given up long ago.

I just got New Vegas on disc (cuz I wanted to avoid the Steam autosave bug), and the first thing I noticed was it performed at 1/3rd the framerate FO3 did, and it crashed quite a bit. So I did what any red blooded internet videogame geek would do: I googled like a mad motherfucker.

I only applied one fix, dropping the linked dx9.dll file into NVs root directory. The framerate outside in Goodsprings went from 15 FPS to 45, and the game no longer CTDs out on me (knock on wood). If anyone hasn't attempted this little tweak yet, I recommend doing so. It fixed 99.9% of the problems I was experiencing with the game.

I'm running an old 8800GTS 512 using the 258.96 64-bit drivers. FO3 ran as well for me on Win7 64 as it did when I first played it on XP.

According to what little I've read, this is a problem specific to NV. It has something to do with the facegen setup used for the characters and DX10. I didn't get too indepth with the research. Just saw that it supposedly improved framerates, tried it out, and found it worked quite nicely.

The d3d9.dll wrapper is now redundant on at least Nvidia hardware since the last patch. It's recommended that you remove it from your game directory, if you're running an Nvidia card.

Product Update - 10 Nov 2010
Fallout: New Vegas - Version 1.1.1
Companions now show up as waypoints on the map
Companions will always fast travel with you, unless told to wait or sent away
Fix: DLC error/save corruption
Fix: Stuttering with water effects
Fix: Severe performance issues with DirectX.
Fix: Controls temporarily disabled after reloading Cowboy Repeater while crouched
Fixed crash using the Euclid C-Finder while having the Heave Ho perk
Fix: Entering the strip after Debt Collector causes crash and autosave corruption
Fix: Using Mojave Express dropbox can cause DLC warnings
Fixed crash when buying duplicate caravan cards from a vendor in a single transaction
Crafting menu should filter valid (bright) recipes to the top of the list
Fix: Sitting down while looking down a weapon's ironsights leaves player control locked
Fix: If a companion is knocked unconscious with broken limbs they stay broken on respawn
Fix for varmint night scope effect persisting in kill cam
Fix for giving companions armor that adds STR does not increase their carry weight
Fix NPC Repair menu displays DAM as DPS
Having NPC repair service rifle with forged receiver decreases CND

I wasn't aware of this thread till tonight so you can read my opinions of Vegas over in the gen channels "What are you playing" thread.

But after pumping 100 hours into the game (according to steam anyways) I'd certainly say that the games pretty damn fuckin awesome.

Whether its better than Fallout 3 or not I dunno. It certainly feels alot less cut and paste of locations compared to F3 and there's alot more story behind it.

I've not experienced alot of crashes to desktop except for one bit in the white glove society building where the game would crash almost every single time I'd speak to a npc that I had to speak to, to proceed on a quest. Perseverance and ALOT of saving won through and I eventually got through that bit. I've experienced occasional crashes sure. Just not alot of them.

Buggy quests annoyed the hell out of me at certain bits in the game. Luckily the Fallout wiki listed command line codes you could enter to fix them up / step back a step or 2 in the quest line which enabled me to fix those issues. Never had to do that before in a game besides in fan mods etc for other games (Halflife 1 & 2 especially).

On the overall whole I'd definitely say that Vegas is worth every dollar I spent on it. The game has a hell of alot more depth to it than F3 did and I loved every minute from level 8-9 onwards which is around the time I got to Novac I think and got Boone to join up with me. Locations became actually beatable from then on.

Loved it even more once I got some Brotherhood of steel weapons (Gauss Rifle ftw).

Really? As far as I can tell, energy weapons are kind of pointless. The damage is fairly low for anything that's readily available, and it doesn't eclipse guns in the late game to make it a long term investment. Feels a lot like Fallout 2 in that regard.

I have. Plasma weapons have that delay to hit, makes it hard to strike with. The real thing is that when they're available, the 308 sniper or the 50cal anti-materiel rifle is too. Makes it real hard to justify dumping the points, especially since they're rarer in New Vegas

I'm loving this as well. Bethesda have really nailed it this time. While vanilla Fallout 3 was a classic in its own right -- just as the other two main fallout games were -- some of the expansion packs were a let down, in my opinion, such as Mothership Zeta (boring) and Point Lookout (meh overall).

I have chosen hardcore mode as the difficulty level and it really adds an enjoyable, old-schoolish strategic element to the game. Although I must admit that there are some very difficult and challenging moments in the game such as a section that I'm stuck in at the moment where I'm underground trying to discover a radiation source that has contaminated a nearby farm close to Vegas. Man, those vault ghouls are tough buggers and the constant radiation creates a sense of urgency to try and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. My sidekick Boone is really not suited to that environment but I'm getting my ass kicked way too often down there to go it alone. Also, I had no idea that you could get Stimpack sickness -- and what a time for that to happen. Get me the hell out of there and quick -- I need a doctor.